Note: This interview took place in March 2022.
When Mel Ruzzi took over as head coach of the Brown Bears before last season, the team had not finished above 11th in the ECAC since 2012. As mentioned in the ECAC season preview, it has been 13 years since the last time this team managed six conference victories and nine years since they last won six games in a season overall. In addition, Ruzzi is the fifth coach over the course of the last ten seasons Brown has played.
Last season, they finished ninth in the ECAC with an overall record of 6-18-5 and a conference record of 6-12-4, earning them 22 points in the standings. That’s the same number of points they earned in the three previous seasons combined and more than any other season dating back to 2006.
While there’s a tendency in sports to want to talk about a team’s turnaround in terms of rebuilding, Ruzzi says she’s hesitant to use the word.
“I’m not a fan of that word. The reason I say that is because when you reference rebuild, it talks about that what’s here is not good enough, and we need to redo the whole thing.”
That’s not the situation she found when she took over the team.
Instead, she has repeatedly called her student-athletes “the greatest group of women athletes I could have ever asked for.” They were eager to learn and improve and looking for a staff to mirror back the focus, trust and commitment they had for the program and the game of hockey.
“It was a change in approach. Every one of them wanted to get better. They thanked us for caring so deeply and valuing them so deeply. They were a hungry group. There was no need to change culture. They needed to find their confidence,” said Ruzzi.
Immediately upon being hired, Ruzzi asked her new team to grant her trust and then set about proving to them that their trust was not misplaced. She said she made it clear that she believed in them and cared about them and wanted their time on the Brown women’s hockey team to be enriching and fulfilling, but also fun.
“It was belief in the people that are here in the room right now. We attacked this year with a ‘rebuild’ by changing expectations and changing standards. It wasn’t about a change in personnel,” she said.
It took some time for things to come together in a way that showed up on the scoresheet. The team headed into winter break with a 1-12-2 record. But the team kept working and focusing on their three key themes of grit, gratitude and trust and they started to see their hard work pay off. They went 5-6-3 in the second half of the season, including closing out the season unbeaten in seven of their final nine games, including a pair of wins over nationally ranked opponents.
Ruzzi remembers getting emotional after her team’s season-ending 1-0 win over Quinnipiac and got choked up again recalling it. It wasn’t just about her team getting a big win. It was the realization that the journey was over with that group of women, she said.
“We had 16 players on a roster that never played in D1 hockey. They were so mature. They were so growth-minded. They were so unafraid. Every time I pushed, they got better and then they wanted to be pushed harder. I think their expectations for themselves were even higher than mine and I thought that was such a gift,” said Ruzzi. “They accepted us right away as a staff. They let us be part of their lives. They were genuine and made every day so much fun. They made it fun.”
It’s a shame the team’s season ended at that point, as only the top eight teams in the ECAC advance to the conference tournament. Had the field been expanded, Brown would likely have gone on to play Princeton, a team they’d tied just the week before. And, as Ruzzi pointed out, since the men’s ECAC tournament features all 12 teams, the Brown men’s team finished ninth and were an overtime goal away from advancing to the second round.
The Brown women’s team was one of the toughest teams to play against as the season wound down and were never given the chance to see if they could carry that through. They peaked at the right time, something Ruzzi said comes from a tenant she learned from her dad as well as her college coach at Providence, Bob Deraney. The key, she said, is to just get better.
“I think that is going to be a trademark of us. We’re going to evolve. We’re a team that’s always going to be on the rise,” she said. “We were in every game. We never gave up. Our goal is to be hard to play against.”
The difficulty for Ruzzi and her staff will be replicating the chemistry, camaraderie and trust of that first season year in and year out. She said she doesn’t want to get hung up on wins and losses, which is good, because in a conference where more than half the teams are nationally ranked, team and player growth may not bear out in the win column.
“I never want to get hung up on the wins and losses. I want to focus on pushing their limits, growing them as athletes, growing them as people and having a really good time together doing it,” Ruzzi said.
That being said, wins are still the hopeful outcome. The idea is that those values and that work will manifest in better play and – naturally – more wins. Last season, there were measurable improvements in team offense and defense in a short amount of time. She sees the potential in her program and her players.
“I wouldn’t have come here if I didn’t think we didn’t have a chance to build something really special,” she said.
Ruzzi compared the season to a hamster wheel and pointed out that it’s difficult to handle losing all the time and stay focused. She learned in her first year as a head coach how important it is to keep perspective and maintain a happy environment. Her commitment to the student-athletes and their experience is so important because for many of these players, these four years are the culmination of a life spent playing hockey.
“For right now, you’re not going to get paid a billion dollars to play women’s hockey, so it has to be a passion. it has to be something you love. Our job is to stoke that fire.”
